Are the police on this southern Oregon metropolis defending public security, or chilling political expression?
The Stabbin’ Wagon’s schedule.
An Oregon state legislation — ORS 181A.250 — prohibits police from gathering or sustaining details about the political, spiritual, or social views, and associations or actions of people who find themselves not fairly suspected of legal exercise. However in a lawsuit filed final month, the ACLU of Oregon accuses police within the Rogue Valley metropolis of Medford of violating that legislation by conducting social media surveillance on varied activists, together with a hurt discount group and its regionally high-profile founder.
That statute, enacted by the legislature within the Nineteen Eighties, got here in response to a historical past of state “legislation enforcement businesses utilizing their energy to observe, silence and criminalize the protected speech of these whose views they disagree with or discover distasteful, unorthodox, or politically inconvenient,” the criticism mentioned. That historical past goes a minimum of way back to the Portland Police Bureau’s “Pink Squad,” which spent many of the twentieth Century monitoring and focusing on the constitutionally protected speech and protest actions of individuals and teams whose viewpoints challenged prevailing political and social norms.
Because of a public data request by the group Info for Public Use, the ACLU was capable of finding quite a few data displaying MPD staff partaking in monitoring the social media exercise of the three plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are the Rogue Valley Pepper Shakers, a LGBTQ rights group loudly essential of police misconduct; the Stabbin’ Wagon, a hurt discount outfit that has a historical past of recording conflicts with the MPD; and Stabbin’ Wagon founder Melissa Jones, who “works to handle racist and classist points inside the struggle on medication by advocating for decriminalization, secure provide and secure consumption websites, and social justice work by an fairness, equality, and abolition lens.”
MPD needed to control these “troublemakers,” however that’s in opposition to state legislation, the criticism argues.
“Paperwork present the Medford Police Division has systematically violated ORS 181A.250 by focusing on civilian activists, advocates, and grassroots organizations — together with Plaintiffs and like-minded individuals and teams all through the Rogue Valley — for covert surveillance and monitoring, outdoors of any legal investigation, and based mostly upon the content material of their protected political actions,” the criticism reads.
“Merely put, MPD is abusing its energy to spy on activists whose views it dislikes — and, not solely that, constructing and sustaining information about such individuals and organizations with none justifiable legislation enforcement objective, a blatant violation of Oregon legislation. The Courtroom’s intervention is important to declare MPD’s surveillance actions illegal and to place a cease to them — as soon as and for all.”
Town of Medford and the MPD say they aren’t breaking the legislation. In a press release, Medford Metropolis Legal professional Eric Mitton mentioned police weren’t breaking the legislation as a result of they had been monitoring on-line exercise for potential public security considerations — to not gather data on political beliefs.
“Incidents at public occasions, such because the conflicts and visitors disruptions in Medford on June 1, 2020 [during George Floyd protests], exemplify why being ready is important,” mentioned Mitton. “[T]he Metropolis was capable of reroute visitors and assist mitigate conflicts between counter-protesters and protesters.”
Medford Police Chief Justin Ivens mentioned in a press release that his division upholds the constitutional rights of residents.
“We use publicly accessible data to plan and employees occasions impacting public security,” mentioned Ivens. “This ensures our capability to handle potential security considerations whereas safeguarding these exercising their constitutional proper to free speech.”
However the ACLU of Oregon wasn’t shopping for it.
“These aren’t public security threats. Individuals aren’t engaged in crime,” mentioned Kelly Simon, the group’s authorized director. “However the police are being distracted by ineffective data and that kind of waste of assets that detracts from actual public security considerations locally… ought to concern everybody.”
MPD’s on-line surveillance can discourage protected political exercise, she mentioned.
“I believe that is what makes this sort of invasive surveillance so chilling,” mentioned Simon. “[Y]ou do not know you are being adopted otherwise you’re being watched or persons are type of infiltrating your group till you realize. After which as soon as you realize, it is fairly terrifying.”
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to cease MPD monitoring of homosexual activists and the hurt reductionists and “different aid because the Courtroom deems simply and correct.”
